Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1887-03-06
POPULAR SCIENCE.
Items OF Discovery and Invention Useful
In Everyday Life.

ttems OF Discovery and Invention Useful
In Every Day Life.
A valuable discovery has been made,
] whereby the faded ink on old parch.nents
may De restored SO as to render the writ
ing perfectly legible. The process consists
| in Eoistening the paper with water, and
then passing over the lines of writing g
brush which has been wet in solution
of spiPhide OF ammonia. The writing will
Immediately appear quite dark
in color, and this color in
the case of parchment it Will
preserve. Records which were treated in
this way in the Germanic Museum in
Nuremberg, ten wears ago, are still IN the
same condition as Immediately after the
application Of the process. Ga paper,
however, the color gradually fades again,
but it may be restored st pleasure by the
application of the sulphide. The expla-
nation Of the action of this substance is
very simple; the iron that enters into the
composition of the Ing is Transformed bv
the reaction into the black suIphide.
A Norwegian engineer, Herr ". C.
Moeller, finds that reindeer hair and skin
have q remarkable buoyancy. For in
stance, reindeer skin, weighing under
two Kilograms, and rolled up with the
hair outward, Will support, for ten days,
the same weight as an ordinary cork life
belt. When used in the form of life
belt, it has the additional prop
erty of keeping the body
warm. y suit of reindeer-skin Will keep
man from drowning. and Herr MoelIer
expects such dress 10 supersede uilskln.
Life-belts filed with reindeer hair are
substitutes for iife-belts Of cork. Col
lapsing boats and sledges may also be
constructed Of the hide. The hfe-saviug
establishment al GOthenburg has pro-
cured some Of these reindeerg PARTICLES.
A series of tests has recently been made
by DR.. Fischer, the well-known German
chemist, showing that in ordinary do
nestle stoves in use not more than - Per
cent. of fuel consumed is really utilized
for warming the rooms, whereas with
stoves burning gas so per cent. and more
of the possible effect is obtained In
sugar maDufaCt0ry at Elsdorf, it is stated
no steam engines have been used for sew
erGl years. Gas is made at cost of about
l0d. per 100 cubic feet, and is used for
lighting and driving gss-engines. At tn
Essen WORKS water gas is made at cost
of Id. to Sd. per 100 feet, and serves both
for ire and lighting.
A manufacturer OF Roubaix, Nj. Henry
Buisini, has just discovered very cur
ious application Of electricity to looms.
He adopts AZ indicator which strikes when
6 thread il the warp breaks, and thus
saves the warper from taking out any of
his work 10 find the flaw, and he need not
pay such close attention to the quickly
moving threads which is so Injurious to
the sight. The invention can be applied
to power-looms.-[ Electrical Review.
4 doctor in ST. Louis explains the
necessity for having Two ears by the fact
that sound is always heard more distinctly
by one ear than by the other, and in this
way it is located. man with but one ear
can hear just as Well as a man with two,
but he cannot locate the sound.
1t has recently been discovered that
screws dipped in q mixture OF OF anG
black lead will not become too rigidly |
fixed, and will not rust.
Experience in a Glasgow hospital has
taught that while boiled or fried fish is
dangerous diet for weak persons steamed
fish is harmless.
An English inventor claims that bells /
made by soldering together pieces of tcHt
metal gave much better volume of sOC-u /.
than cast bells.